Monthly Archives: June 2015

I love what our family has built from the ground up. We are finally harvesting from our aquaponics grow beds. Our baby turkeys are now outside and beginning to gobble. Our homestead is a dream come true for us.

Check out our videos below. (made on a REALLY hot day in northern AZ. We actually have a heat warning today.)

I saw that it was between $5-10 for a 1/2 pound of goat cheese at the store. Now, imagine this. I will NOT ever pay that much for something that I can create on my own for a whole lot less.

I truly love how easy it is to make goat cheese. I love that I can give my husband one more thing made from our homestead that we both love and that it only takes minutes for me to prepare (although it does take 12 hours of sitting after you add the cultures, and about 12 hours of draining).

OK… So, here is how EASY this really is.

We use RAW (unpasteurized) fresh goat milk for our recipe.

Take 1 gallon of goat milk and heat up to 75 degrees on the stove top/ Remove from heat. Sprinkle on one packet of direct-set mesophilic starter. Let dissolve and stir gently. Mix together 2 drops of liquid rennet mixed in 1/4 cup of water. Add the water mixture to the milk. DO NOT over stir.

Let the mixture sit for 12 hours at room temperature. The curds and whey will separate.

Place a piece of butter or cheese cloth in a strainer. Scoop the curds into the cloth, tie is up (I use the microwave handle) and place a bowl under to catch all of the whey that drips. After about 12 hours, the cheese is ready. Place in a container in the refrigerator to chill. I always add salt to mine before serving.

We have had such a GREAT day together as a family. Shelby picked up an antique armoire for her bedroom from a nice couple from Prescott who were moving to be closer to their kids up in Oregon. Then, we went to a park in Prescott and had a picnic lunch and geocached. It was nothing fancy, but it was great to just enjoy each other’s company. I had all 8 kids and Larry, which is something rare these days with everyone’s schedules.

It’s June 12 and we are continuing our goal of doing something every day as a family.

We had a crazy morning where my “triplets of terror” (Breckin, Berlyn and Trystan) were really above anything that I was willing to deal with in public. Therefore, we missed both our homeschool park day and going to the special needs program at the park. Not a happy mommy here.

Today’s project – besides our regular school work (today is an astronomy lesson) is getting the turkeys moved from my garage, since the little escape artists are taking over the entire garage and wreaking havoc almost hourly. (There is one trying to gobble too and I can hear him from anywhere in the house from his perch in the garage.)

They (as in ALL of them) have figured out how to pull off the bird netting from their pen even with every different type of tying and fixture that I could think of to get it to stay atop. Every time I go into the garage, at least one of them is out of their pen, perched on something in the garage staring at me as if saying “Just try and chase me, Mama. Just try.”

If you haven’t geocached, you need to take your kids out and start doing this FUN activity. It is a high tech treasure hunting where the treasure is finding a piece of paper and signing your name in most cases. The best part is there is now an AP for your smart phone to look up geocaches while being out and about. Go online to www.geocaching.com and create an account. The real fun is following your GPS (or smart phone), reading clues on each cache and problem-solving to find the hidden container. We work together as a family and that makes it more fun. Today, in order to reach one, Elwyn had to sit on Griffen’s shoulders just to reach it.

Our goal for the summer is to have an activity or “something” everyday as a family. It could be simple as making cheese, watching a movie together or going to church… or of course it could be an overnight trip or something else more “advanced”. My goal is to make the memories that many kids don’t get with my children. bio, adopted and foster.

June 1 (Monday) – Project Wild with Amanda at the park. The kids got to learn all about Black Bears. Did you know that they can stand up to 6 feet tall!!! We joined other homeschool families and gathered at Memory Park to start our 6 weeks of Project Wild. This is such a cool program. www.projectwild.org

June 2 (Tuesday) – Made Lemon Curd Goat Cheese… SO YUMMY! And not hard at all!!! Here are a few different videos that I found: (you can make it with vinegar too… but I like the citrus taste using the lemon juice.)

Lemon Curd Goat Cheese

I have known the Henry family from Henry Milker for over 25 years!!!

June 3 (Wednesday) Gymnastics – I know… not too exciting, but the kids have fun!

June 4 (Thursday) – Eddie Siller the Magician. Every year this amazing man comes in and supports the special needs program through the Chino Valley Library. LOVE THIS FAMILY! Berlyn got to be one of his “assistants” this time too!

Eddie Siller with Berlyn

June 5 (Friday) – Mom needed a Break YARD SALING! When I got home, we fired up the BBQ and made S’more over the outdoor fire pit. SO YUMMY!

June 6 (Saturday) BeachBlast at church. It is the start of the summer. Silly me! No photos…. But our church (www.heightschurch.com) puts this on every year… Berlyn got such a kick out of riding a “mechanical shark”. Yes, you ready that correct. Ate BBQ burgers, played in really cold water. We took several of the kids’ BFF with us as well. What a BLAST they had at beach blast.

June 7 (Sunday) Griffen joined a HeroClix Tournament in Prescott Valley at the GAMEON store out there. What might you ask is that? HeroClix is a collectible miniatures game that uses the Clix system that centers on the world of superhero comic books, especially the Marvel and DC Comics universes. (This definition is directly off of the wikipedia website.)

Griffen and his HeroClix Samuroid

June 8 (Monday) Project Wild with Amanda at the park – We learned about the difference between domesticated and wild animals. Kids went through magazines and cut out photos of animals. Each got to make a little poster to share with each other.
Project Wild with Amanda

We also started back to school. My poor kids, they really don’t get a break from school during the summer. My kids seem to forget over the summer if we don’t school so we school year round. We found a FANTASTIC Science and History curriculum for the summer that even got Berlyn into it. Here is Breckin reading to the other kids (in the rain) out of the textbook.

Breckin reading out of the Astronomy textbook outside in the summer rain.

June 9 (Tuesday) Goonies at the Theater (I LOVE Tuesday night classics at Harkins). Several of the kids packed up in the car and took their mama to her FAVORITE 80’s cult classic movie, GOONIES that was playing. HEY YOU GUYS! We were off… to a sold out viewing with all of the other Goonies in the theater.